FCA Federal
This archive displays posts tagged as relevant to the federal False Claims Act. You may also be interested in the following pages:
Top Ten Whistleblower Awards of 2022
Posted 02/1/23
January 31, 2023
New York-based High Life LLC, which designs and imports apparel, has agreed to pay $1.3 million after admitting that it underreported the value of 67 shipments into the United States to avoid paying customs duties. After multiple shipments were detained for possibly fraudulent declared values, High Life switched from purchasing apparel on Landed Duty Paid (LDP) to Free on Board (FOB), which allowed it to use the price its vendors paid to manufacturers as the value of the shipment, rather than what High Life paid the vendors. However, because there were other restrictions on declaring value, High Life developed a formula to calculate what it wanted the declared value to be, then instructed vendors to use it. USAO SDNYJanuary 30, 2023
International Vitamins Corporation (IVC), which imports and sells vitamins and supplements from China, has agreed to pay $22.8 million to settle claims of defrauding the United States. The U.S.-based company allegedly avoided U.S. customs duties by misclassifying over 30 of its products, then failed to pay back duties owed after realizing it had underpaid millions of dollars. The alleged fraud occurred between 2015 and 2019, and only came to scrutiny through a whistleblower’s lawsuit. USAO SDNYJanuary 30, 2023
A doctor in Michigan who was involved in a $250 million fraud scheme against Medicare, Medicaid, and other insurers, has been sentenced to 16.5 years in prison. Along with 21 co-conspirators, Dr. Francisco Patino took advantage of patients suffering from addiction by forcing them to receive medically unnecessary, painful, but lucrative spinal injections in exchange for opioid prescriptions. Additionally, Patino knowingly violated the Anti-Kickback and Stark laws by receiving kickbacks from a laboratory in exchange for sending patient samples to that lab. All told, Patino submitted more claims to Medicare for spinal injections than any other provider in the country between 2012 and 2017, prescribed more Oxycodone than any other provider in Michigan in 2016 and 2017, and was personally responsible for $120 million of the $250 million in false claims billed to insurers. DOJJanuary 27, 2023
Walgreen Co. has paid $7 million to settle a False Claims Act lawsuit by the United States and State of Tennessee that alleged the company submitted claims to Tennessee’s Medicaid program for specialty medications that didn’t meet the program’s criteria for coverage. According to the governments’ 2021 complaint, one of Walgreens’ former pharmacists falsified prior authorization requests and records for 65 Medicaid beneficiaries who didn’t meet program requirements. The company then billed TennCare under those false prior authorization requests, and later failed to make repayments even after it discovered its employee’s misconduct. USAO EDTNTop Ten Non-Healthcare False Claims Act Recoveries of 2022
Posted 01/27/23
